Fire extinguisher units and holders therefor



Sept 10, 1957 A. APREA FIRE EXTINGUISHER UNITS AND HOLDERS THEREFOR Filed Deo. 30, 1955 iw 'ga FIRE EXTINGUISHER UNITS AND HOLDERS TI-IEREFOR Annette Aprea, Baldwin, N. Y.

Application December 30, 1955, Serial No. 556,561

4 Claims. (Cl. 169-30) This invention relates to a lire extinguisher unit, and more particularly to a decorative holder for mounting a lire extinguisher in the home.

Although many tires occur in the home, relatively few homes are equipped with a re extinguisher, because re extinguishers are unattractive in eye appearance and therefore are not favored for display in the home, and when concealed from view they are apt to become mislaid and thus be unavailable when actually needed.

The object of this invention is a re extinguisher unit from which the fire extinguisher can be quickly removed for use when required but which is suiciently esthetic to be `displayed in the home in any desired and accessible location.

Another object is a fire extinguisher unit, including a conventional lire extinguisher and an ornamental holder for masking the fire extinguisher which holder is appropriately decorative when displayed in any place in the home where it is desirable that a lire extinguisher be readily accessible for immediate use.

Another object is to so mask a re extinguisher that it may be mounted in a readily accessible place anywhere in the home without offending or impairing the decorative ensemble thereof.

Another object is to so Camouflage a conventional fire extinguisher that it assumes the appearance of an ornament and may be visibly displayed where it is always ready for instant use in case of tire.

Other objects will appear from the detailed description.

In accordance with this invention the conventional hand operated fire extinguisher is removably encased in an ornamental holder to complete a unit which may be mounted upon the wall of a room in a readily accessible position and in full view so as to tastefully blend with the decorative ensemble of the surrounding household furnishings irrespective of the particular locale.

In the drawing one embodiment of the invention is shown by way of illustration.

Fig. l is a front elevation of the re extinguisher holder with a portion of he router casing partially broken away to show the construction of the inner casing.

Fig. 2 is a plan view of the lire extinguisher holder, and

Fig. 3 is a vertical cross sectional View of the re extinguisher unit in installed position, with certain of the parts partially broken away, and with the re extinguisher indicated in broken lines.

The extinguisher unit (Fig. 3) consists of a hand operated iire extinguisher 19 anda casing or holder 19 for masking the extinguisher, which holder can be mounted upon a wall or other suitable support and in an accessible position.

The holder may include a cylindrical wall 11, and a attened back wall 12 for `abutting the at isurface of the structure on which the holder is supported. The cylindrical wall 11 is of contrasting open and closed struc* wture which denes an ornamental or decorative grill work 13 through which the interior of the holder 10 is made visible. A plurality of inverted keyhole openings 14, 14 are formed in the back wall 12 in spaced relation to provide means for detachably attaching the holder 10 and its contents upon suitable wall fasteners such as the round head screws 22, 22, or the like.

The bottom of the holder 1i) may be partly open and partly closed, and may consist of the radial arms 15, 15 whereon the inner cylindrical casing 16 may be supported upon its bottom wall 17. The wall of the casing 16 is preferably in one continuous piece and of markedly contrasting color or lustre to the grill work 13, so that the Wall of said inner casing 16 is contrastingly visible through the openwork of the ornamental grill work 13, thus enhancing the coloring and the decorative effect of the holder 1li.

The casing 16 is large enough to conveniently house a conventional hand size lire extinguisher, and the upper lip of the casing 16 is slotted at 18 to accommodate the valve stem 2t) of the valve mechanism 21 of the lire extinguisher 19.

The valve mechanism 21 of the iire extinguisher 19 may be operated by turning the knob mounted upon the valve stern 20, thus releasing the liquid contents of the tire extinguisher through the nozzle of the extinguisher in the conventional manner. l

The slot 18 is wider than the diameter of the valve stern 20, and is long enough so that when the valve stem 2t? is seated in the bottom of slot 18 the head of the valve mechanism 21 will not protrude above the rim of the holder 1i). In Fig. 3 the tire extinguisher is encased in the inner casing 16 and below the rim thereof, and the said rim of the inner casing is in turn below the rim of the outer casing of the vholder 10, so that the ire extinguisher 19 is completely masked by the holder 10.

Round head screws 22, 22 or other suitable fasteners, may be secured in the wall or other support whereon the holder 10 is to be mounted. The screws are spaced to register with the enlarged bottom holes of the inverted keyhole slots 14, 14, and the heads of the lscrews are spaced far enough away from the surface of the wall in which the Shanks of the screws are embedded, so that the anges of the screw heads will clear the inside face =of the back wall 12 ,whenever the key hole openings 14 are brought into cooperative registry with the screw heads to fasten the holder 10 to the wall or other support.

The various parts of the holder 10 may be made of metal, plastics, or other materials. When made of metal, the grill work 13 may be provided with a dull finish, and the inner casing 16 may be of lustrous metal which glistens through the openwork of the ornamental grill work 13 to further enhance the decorative effect. When made of plastic materials, the grill work 13 and the inner casing 16 may be finished in contrasting colors, and various patterns of grill work may be used, to provide an almost endless variety of decorative effects.

The ornamental appearance and decorative effects produced7 make it possible to openly display the fire extinguisher unit (Fig. 3) in any room in the house where the re extinguisher may be readily accessible for instant use when required, without detracting from the surrounding decorative ensemble.

The decorative effect may, if desired, be further enhanced by inserting artificial flowers in the holder 10, so that the flower stems enter the space between the inner casing 16 and the wall 11 of the outer casing.

The outer casing is sized to permit the fingers to be inserted inside the said casing far enough to grasp the valve head 2l. of the lire extinguisher 19 and thus lift the lire extinguisher v19 upwardly from its holder 1t). In the alternative the lire extinguisher may be removed from the holder by turning the unit upside down to release the fire extinguisher, after first detaching the re extinguisher unit (Fig. 3) from the wall bylifting the holder far enough to allow the heads of the screws 22 to register in the enlarged bottom holes of the keyhole slots 14, A14 and sliding the holder over the heads of the screws.

The casing 16 and the holder 10 are both made long enough to accommodate conventional hand size tire extinguishers of different lengths, so that the casing 16 in effect allows for adjustment by adapting itself to the length of the fire extinguisher 19. As shown in the drawing (Fig. 3), the re `extinguisher 19 does not rest upon the bottom 17 of the casing 16, but is suspended by its valve stem 20 in the slot 18. The knob or handle of the valve stem does not bind against the inner face of the wall 12, and the diameter of the inner casing exceeds the diameter of the largest conventional re extinguisher in common use, so that any conventional hand size tire extinguisher can be employed in the unit, so long as the valve stem 20 enters the valve slot 1S when the bottom of the tire extinguisher engages the bottom wall 17, and the head of the valve does not protrude above the rim of the casing 16.

What is claimed is:

l. In a fire extinguisher unit and in combination an elongated outer casing, said casing having a containing wall, said containing wall being partly cylindrical and partly at, the edge faces of said partly cylindrical and partly attened portions of said containing wall being joined together to complete said containing wall, said iattened portion being adapted to lie at against a supporting structure and thereby project said cylindrical portion of said containing wall outwardly from said supporting structure, said cylindrical portion being of contrasting open and closed'structure dening a fenestrated ornamental grill work, said outer casing being open at the upper end thereof, an inverted keyhole slot formed in the upper end of the flattened portion of said containing wall for receiving and overlying the head of a nail whereby said outer` casing may be detachably mounted against a supporting structure, an elongated cylindrical inner casing mounted within said outer casing and in spaced axial alignment therewith, said inner casing being open at the top and sized to telescopically receive and to contain and mask `the body of a valve-in-head type re extinguisher when said extinguisher is positioned within said inner casing, an elongated guide slot formed in the upper end of the Wall of said inner casing and extending downwardly from the upper edge `face thereof for slidably receiving the stem of the valve of a valve-in-head type re extinguisher to removably support said tire extinguisher withinr said inner casing, and a bottom member common to said outer and inner casings and rigidly securing and retaining said inner casing within and in spaced relation to said outer casing and for walling in the bottom end of the inner casing to arrest downward passage of a re extinguisher through said casing.

2. In a tire extinguisher unit and in combination a hollow casing shaped and sized to house and mask a valve-in-head type cylindrically shaped re extinguisher, said casingy being open at the top to provide an entranceexit for said extinguisher, a base member secured adjacent the lower end of said'casing and forming a closure for said lower end, said casing having a peripheral wall of lustrous nish, a hollow outer holder sized to spacedly encase said casing, said holder having a wall comprising a plurality of sections extending above the `rim of the casing and spaced outwardly from the wall of the casing, means for spacedlyY securing the casing in an upright posi- 4 tion within the holder, one section of the wall of the holder being at to stabilize the holder when externally supported and another section of the wall of the holder being ornamentally fenestrated to decoratively expose the lustrously finished peripheral wall of the casing through the fenestrations in said outer holder, a plurality of inverted key hole slots extending through the flattened section of the wall of said holder, said key hole slots being arranged in spaced relation and being adapted to cooperate with the heads of fasteners which are anchored in the external support in similarly spaced relationto detachably secure said unit against said external support, a guide slot formed in the upper end of the wall of the casing oppositel the flattened wall section of the holder,

` and said guide slot being sized to slidably accommodate the stem of the valve of a valve-in-head type cylindrically shaped lire extinguisher and to align said valve stern radially outwards beyond the wall of the inner casing and in spaced relation to the inner face of the wall of the `holder to detachably retain said extinguisher `in an upright position and masked by said inner casing.

3.y In a wall-mounted decorative tire extinguisher unit and in combination a valve-in-head type cylindrically shaped hand-operated tire extinguisher, means for masking said re extinguisher comprising a tubular jacket open at the top and sized to admit, house and conceal said tire extinguisher, said jacket having a lustrous peripheral Wall, a holder, said holder having a fenestrated wall spacedly surrounding said tubular jacket to decoratively expose the lustrous wall of the jacket through the fenestrated wall, means for interbracing said walls to retain said jacket upright within and in spaced relation to said holder, a slot formed in the'rim of the peripheral wall of said jacket to slidably receive the stem of the valve of there extinguisher and thus lower the head of the tire extinguisher'below the rims of said jacketand said holder to mask the head and the body of the tire extinguisher, and a plurality of inverted key hole slots arranged in the wall of said holder in spaced relation to each other and useful in detachably mounting said fire extinguisher unit upon a supporting wall.

4. In a wall-mounted decorative fire extinguisher unit for housing and masking a valve-in-head type cylindrically shaped hand-operated tire extinguisher and in combination means for masking such re extinguisher comprising a tubular jacket open at the top and sized to admit, house and conceal such tire extinguisher, said jacket` having a lustrous peripheral wall, a holder, said holder having a fenestrated wall spacedly surrounding said tubular jacket to decoratively expose the lustrous wall of the jacket through the fenestrated wall, means for interbracing said walls to retain said jacket upright within and in spaced relation to said holder, a slot formed in the rim of the peripheral wall of said jacket to slidably receive the stem ofthe valve of a valve-in-head type tire extinguisher and thus enable the head of such fire extinguisher to be lowered below the rims of said jacket and of said holder to mask both the head and the body of such fire extinguisher, and a plurality of inverted key `hole slots arranged in the wall of` said holder in spaced relation to each other and useful in detachably mounting said re extinguisher unit upon a supporting wall.

References Cited in the tile of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,499,672 `Nurkiewicz Mar.. 7, 1950 

